Technologies

This Is What Keeps T-Mobile’s Emergency Response Teams Awake at Night

The pace of natural disasters has increased dramatically, according to professionals whose job is to restore connections in an emergency.

It seemed darkly fitting that my area of the Pacific Northwest would see heavy rainfall and record-breaking floods as I was finishing work on my article about T-Mobile’s disaster response programs. I was reminded, looking at the gray skies outside my window, that natural disasters come in all sizes and intensities, and often without much advance warning.

During my visit to T-Mobile’s headquarters in November, where I got an in-depth tour of how the company’s emergency management teams restore network functionality during natural disasters, I asked everyone: «What keeps you up at night?»

«How many hours do you have?» said John Saw, T-Mobile president of technology and chief technical officer.

Network resiliency is what keeps him awake.

When a disaster strikes, T-Mobile’s emergency response teams mobilize from staging areas all over the US to restore the company’s cellular network. That can involve rolling out SatCOLTs (satellite cell on light trucks) or drones that create temporary 5G network coverage when cell towers are damaged, as well as providing generators where the power is out. They also help communities, in coordination with local and federal first responders, by handing out emergency supplies and portable chargers to people in need.

«Let’s make sure that our network never goes down, because we will be letting someone down if we do that,» Saw said. When it comes to disaster response, Saw said the team puts boots on the ground to make sure affected communities have access to the best technology available.

What do other recovery professionals worry about? For several, it’s how climate change is fueling the recurrence and magnitude of major weather events.

«The way that the climate is changing has increased the different types of disasters and spread them to new locations,» said Stacy Tindell, senior director of T-Mobile’s network engineering and operations. «We have wildfires where we haven’t seen them before. We have hurricanes later into the season.»

Not only does this require more resources, but it also places greater demands on the professionals tasked with reconnecting neighborhoods and communities.

«Disaster response, it’s an adrenaline-filled situation, right? It’s go, go, go. It’s short bursts,» Tindell continued. «Generally speaking, the more that becomes every day, it’s really hard to maintain and sustain, for the network [and] for the people.»

What she doesn’t worry about is the team’s ability to shoulder the load. «Reacting and responding is what we do best,» she said.

Emergency response is as much about preparing for «blue sky» days — when there isn’t an active disaster yet — as it is about reacting during «gray sky» days, when resources and personnel are engaged on the ground to restore cellular connections.

Over the last decade, the company’s emergency response capabilities have grown significantly, said Jon Freier, T-Mobile’s chief operating officer. In 2015, Freier traveled to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to assist T-Mobile employees affected by devastating flooding. «I saw a couple of our competitors with a pretty big presence,» he said, «and I saw us with a couple of people with big hearts and not a whole lot of support to be able to help.»

From there, T-Mobile resources scaled up considerably in the US. The company wouldn’t publicly share how many assets, such as cellular trucks and generators, are at its disposal, or how many warehouses it uses to stage its resources. However, Freier said that T-Mobile, with a customer base of 140 million, has invested tens of millions of dollars in gear and infrastructure to get to where it’s at now.

Although some emergency response deployments are planned, such as during major sporting events like the recent Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix, the team is mostly tasked with reacting as quickly as possible to unexpected incidents.

«It’s the frequency and the intensity of disasters that are happening,» said Nicole Hudnet, national lead for T-Mobile’s Emergency Response team. «It’s not a matter of if, it’s when. [I want to] make sure we’re always prepared.»

I asked if Hudnet felt increased pressure now that people are more reliant on their cell phones, since that’s one of the only ways to contact others during an emergency. «I don’t look at it as pressure, but more of a commitment we have to our communities,» Hudnet said. «If there is a flood, the small flood is just as important as the big flood to those communities.»

Technologies

Google races to put Gemini at the center of Android before Apple’s AI reboot

Google is using its latest Android rollout to position Gemini as the AI layer across phones, Chrome, laptops and cars.

Google is using its latest Android rollout to make Gemini less of a chatbot and more of an operating layer across the phone, browser, car and laptop, just weeks before Apple is expected to show its own Gemini-powered Apple Intelligence reboot at WWDC.
Ahead of its Google I/O developer conference next week, the company previewed a number of Android updates, including AI-powered app automation, a smarter version of Chrome on Android, new tools for creators, a redesigned Android Auto experience, and a sweeping set of new security features.
Alphabet is counting on Gemini to help Google compete directly with OpenAI and Anthropic in the market for artificial intelligence models and services, while also serving as the AI backbone across its expansive portfolio of products, including Android. Meanwhile, Gemini is powering part of Apple’s new AI strategy, giving Google a role in the iPhone maker’s reset even as it races to prove its own version of personal AI on the phone is further along.
Sameer Samat, who oversees Google’s Android ecosystem, told CNBC that Google is rebuilding parts of Android around Gemini Intelligence to help users complete everyday tasks more easily.
“We’re transitioning from an operating system to an intelligence system,” he said.
As part of Tuesday’s announcements. Google said Gemini Intelligence will be able to move across apps, understand what’s on the screen and complete tasks that would normally require a user to jump between multiple services. That means Android is moving beyond the traditional assistant model, where users ask a question and get an answer, and acting more like an agent.
For instance, Google says Gemini can pull relevant information from Gmail, build shopping carts and book reservations. Samat gave the example of asking Gemini to look at the guest list for a barbecue, build a menu, add ingredients to an Instacart list and return for approval before checkout.
A big concern surrounding agentic AI involves software taking action on a user’s behalf without permissions. Samat said Gemini will come back to the user before completing a transaction, adding, “the human is always in the loop.”
Four months after announcing its Gemini deal with Google, Apple is under pressure to show a more capable version of Apple Intelligence, which has been a relative laggard on the market. Apple has long framed privacy, hardware integration and control of the user experience as its advantages.
Google’s Android push is designed to show it can bring AI deeper into the device experience while still giving users control over what Gemini can see, where it can act and when it needs confirmation.
The app automation features will roll out in waves, starting with the latest Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel phones this summer, before expanding across more Android devices, including watches, cars, glasses and laptops later this year.
The company is also redesigning Android Auto around Gemini, turning the car into another major surface for its assistant. Android Auto is in more than 250 million cars, and Google says the new release includes its biggest maps update in a decade and Gemini-powered help with tasks like ordering dinner while driving.
Alphabet’s AI strategy has been embraced by Wall Street, which has pushed the company’s stock price up more than 140% in the past year, compared to Apple’s roughly 40% gain. Investors now want to see how Gemini can become more central to the products people use every day.
WATCH: Alphabet briefly tops Nvidia after report of $200 billion Anthropic cloud deal

Technologies

Waymo recalls 3,800 robotaxis after glitch allowed some vehicles to ‘drive into standing water’

Waymo issued a voluntary recall of about 3,800 of its robotaxis to fix software issues that could allow them to drive into flooded roadways.

Waymo is recalling about 3,800 robotaxis in the U.S. to fix software issues that could allow them to “drive onto a flooded roadway,” according to a letter on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website.
The voluntary recall is for Waymo vehicles that use the company’s fifth and sixth generation automated driving systems (or ADS), the U.S. auto safety regulator said in the letter posted Tuesday.
Waymo autonomous vehicles in Austin, Texas, were seen on camera driving onto a flooded street and stalling, requiring other drivers to navigate around them. It’s the latest example of a safety-related issue for the Alphabet-owned AV unit that’s rapidly bolstering its fleet of vehicles and entering new U.S. markets.
Waymo has drawn criticism for its vehicles failing to yield to school buses in Austin, and for the performance of its vehicles during widespread power outages in San Francisco in December, when robotaxis halted in traffic, causing gridlock.
The company said in a statement on Tuesday that it’s “identified an area of improvement regarding untraversable flooded lanes specific to higher-speed roadways,” and opted to file a “voluntary software recall” with the NHTSA.
“Waymo provides over half a million trips every week in some of the most challenging driving environments across the U.S., and safety is our primary priority,” the company said.
Waymo added that it’s working on “additional software safeguards” and has put “mitigations” in place, limiting where its robotaxis operate during extreme weather, so that they avoid “areas where flash flooding might occur” in periods of intense rain.
WATCH: Waymo launches new autonomous system in Chinese-made vehicle

Technologies

Qualcomm tumbles 13% as semiconductor stocks retreat from historic AI-fueled surge

Semiconductor equities reversed sharply after a broad AI-driven advance, with Qualcomm suffering its worst day since 2020 amid inflation concerns and rising oil prices.

Semiconductor stocks fell sharply on Tuesday, reversing course after an extensive rally that had expanded the artificial intelligence investment theme well past Nvidia and driven the industry to unprecedented levels.

Qualcomm plunged 13% and was on track for its steepest single-day decline since 2020. Intel shed 8%, while On Semiconductor and Skyworks Solutions each lost more than 6%. The iShares Semiconductor ETF, which benchmarks the overall sector, fell 5%.

The sell-off came after a key gauge of consumer prices came in above forecasts, and as conflict in Iran pushed crude oil higher—prompting investors to shift away from riskier assets.

The preceding advance had widened the AI opportunity set beyond longtime industry leader Nvidia, which for much of the past several years had largely carried the market to new peaks on its own.

Explosive appetite for central processing units, along with the graphics processing units that power large language models, has sent chipmakers to all-time highs.

Market participants are wagering that the shift from AI model training to autonomous agents will lift demand for additional AI hardware. Among the beneficiaries are memory chip producers, which are raising prices as supply remains tight.

Micron Technology slid 6%, and Sandisk cratered 8%. Sandisk’s stock has surged more than six times over since January.